


Something Important

by whichclothes



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 20:07:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some years post-series (and ignoring the comics) Angel arrives to discuss something important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Important

**Title** :Something Important  
 **Pairing** : Spike/Angel  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Disclaimer** : I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** Some years post series (and ignoring the comics) Angel arrives to discuss something important.  
 **Author's Notes** :Thank you to my lovely beta, silk_labyrinth . Written for rekindlespangel.

 **  
Something Important   
**

Spike wasn’t surprised when the bell jingled merrily over the door and Angel walked into the little lobby. He’d been expecting him to show up again eventually, and ten years hadn’t dimmed that expectation. A decade was nothing at all to a vampire; a mere blink of the eyes.

And Angel looked exactly the same as always: hair sticking up stupidly, wide brow furrowed, corners of the mouth turned downward. He was wearing trousers and a shirt that were meant to look carelessly expensive, and a long dark coat that glistened slightly with moisture from the fog.

Spike didn’t bother to get up from his comfortable chair as Angel sauntered over, scowled at the rack of lenticular postcards, frowned at Spike, and leaned his head toward the opening in the glass.

“Need a room, mate?” Spike asked casually. “Have one available on the third floor. Ocean view. One forty a night plus tax.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.” Angel tapped his fingertips on the counter and glanced at the doorway that led to the coffee shop. “I need to talk to you.”

Spike lifted one shoulder and returned his gaze to the solitaire cards on his computer screen. “So talk.”

“Not … not here. In private.”

Spike glanced back at him and lifted a single eyebrow. He didn’t even have to add a leer for good measure; Angel’s eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. “It’s important,” he growled.

“My shift ends at five. We can chat then.”

“But it’s _important_.”

“My job’s bloody important, too. To me, at any rate. Gives me a roof over my head and dosh for blood, fags, and Jack. And free internet. I don’t want to lose it.”

Angel opened his mouth to argue, and Spike would have argued back, and they would have ended up in a fight that would have cost Spike his position after all, but an elderly couple exited the coffee shop and waved at Spike. The woman had an enormous afro and was wearing a brown polyester pantsuit she probably bought new in 1977, while the man had only a few wisps of white hair left on his shiny skull and wore a green t-shirt that said something about hemp. “Night,” Spike called after them. “See you next week.”

“I’ll be back at five,” Angel grumbled and followed the couple into the dark. Spike wondered where his sire intended to spend the next seven hours. Skulking in alleyways, no doubt. When he wasn’t in the mood to drink or shag, Spike preferred to spend his free nighttime hours at Sutro Park or Lands End, especially if the sky was clear and he could look down at the ships’ lights twinkling on the ocean horizon. Even when it was foggy, he could keep an eye open for monsters that crept through the trees and stalked homeless people or unwary youngsters who fancied smoking a bowl or two under the eucalyptus.

The night was as quiet as usual. Few people checked in or out of the See-Vue in the wee hours, and Spike’s duties mainly consisted of making sure burglars didn’t invade the car park, or answering occasional requests for more firewood to be brought up to a room. Mostly he sipped tea and surfed online or read. Every now and then he scribbled poetry, which he promptly tore into tiny pieces and tossed away.

The bell jingled again but it wasn’t Angel this time. “Hey, Spike,” said the man who shambled in.

“Evening, George.”

George grinned and did an impatient little dance. He was a round little man with a “Property of Alcatraz Psycho Ward” tee stretched tightly over his belly and a gray watch cap pulled down low on his head. “I didn’t see any aliens or anything tonight, Spike. I looked, though, just like I promised. Can I use the bathroom? Please?”

Spike nodded and George scurried around the corner. The loo was meant to be for customers only, but George really did keep Spike apprised of anything unusual in the neighborhood—well, anything more unusual than normal—and he always left the loo cleaner than he’d found it. Wasn’t his fault he was barmier than Dru. Besides, sometimes on a cold night he’d sit in one of the lobby’s twin chairs and spin tales of his adventures, both real and imaginary, and Spike fancied the company. Tonight, though, when he emerged from the toilet he babbled something about needing to get his papers in order and he ran back outside. He claimed to be writing a book on how beings from space were using the indefinite articles in romance novels to send secret messages, and he said his book would change the world. Perhaps it would.

Over the next several hours, Spike played solitaire and watched YouPorn. He read three chapters of _Slaughterhouse Five_ , even though he’d read the novel several times already; he took room reservations from two sets of German tourists who telephoned the motel; and he straightened the brochure rack. He flashed a bit of fang at a drunk who looked as if he meant to piss on the sidewalk near the front door. He listened to the Mile Rock foghorn bellow mournfully, like some lost prehistoric beast. He didn’t speculate about the reason for Angel’s arrival or the likely topic of their _important_ conversation.

Angel reentered the motel at 4:51. The fog had washed much of the gel from his hair and he now sported messy tufts instead of careful spikes. He caught Spike staring at his freshly scraped knuckles and jammed his hands into his coat pockets. “Found a couple of fledges over near Candlestick Park.”

“Well out of my territory, mate.” Which was true; Spike rarely ventured east of Divisadero. There was a Slayer who lived in Oakland and sometimes patrolled on this side of the Bay Bridge. She and Spike didn’t get on, and he preferred to stay out of her way. The two of them had never reached an explicit agreement, but she never showed her face in the Outer Richmond and that was good enough for him.

Spike logged out of his account on the computer, straightened the small pile of credit card authorizations he’d acquired near the beginning of his shift, and double-checked the till to make sure there was enough money to make change and not enough to require a bank deposit. Angel shuffled impatiently, pretending to read a brochure for the Olive Oil Experience. Spike had to swallow a snicker as he recalled some of the specific ways he and Angelus had experienced olive oil together, over a century earlier during a sojourn in Tuscany. Perhaps Angel remembered those days as well, because he cleared his throat and jammed the folded paper back into the holder.

“Morning, Spike.” Robby entered the lobby with a jangle of the bell and his ever-present grin. Sometimes Spike wondered if the boy was a bit touched in the head, being so bloody happy all the time. Robby squeezed beside Spike into the small space behind the counter and hung his coat on the hook behind the door. “Busy night?” he asked, smoothing his pale hair back with the palm of his hand.

“Nah. I told the crowds to wait for you.”

“Great! My shift always zooms by when it’s busy.” Robby had a round face with an adorable flush to his cheeks. He reminded Spike of a cherub. Girls and blokes alike drooled over him and even Spike was tempted to gobble him right up, but Robby was either oblivious or asexual. Now, he pointed at Angel. “Does he need to be checked in or something?”

Spike sighed and grabbed his duster. “Nah. He’s here to brood at me.”

“Oh, okay. Have fun!”

Spike snorted.

Room 105 had been Spike's home for nearly eight years, longer than any other place since he’d been turned. It wasn’t particularly large and even if the window hadn’t been permanently covered by thick curtains, the view of the ocean would have been obscured by trees. But the bed was comfortable and there was a television and a radio and a microwave and a nice shower. Spike had even personalized the space a bit with a few photos he’d bought from street vendors and a shelf full of books. His boss knew what Spike was and didn’t care, as long as Spike willingly worked the graveyard shift and was paid under the table.

After he and Angel entered the room, Spike tossed his duster onto a chair and opened the slightly dented armoire. He filled a glass tumbler with whiskey and then, after a brief pause, filled another. He crossed the room to hand one to Angel, who was still standing near the door. “You live here?” Angel asked as he took the glass.

“Sorry it’s not up to your standards, Your Highness.”

“I didn’t mean— Dammit, Spike!” Angel gulped his drink and made a face.

Spike sighed and sank down onto an empty chair. He didn’t understand why he had such an irresistible urge to goad his sire, even after all this time. His drink tasted bitter and he was suddenly exhausted. “What do you want?” he asked, closing his eyes and tipping his head back.

He heard a heavy tread cross the carpet and the slight squeak of bedsprings as Angel settled onto the mattress. There was a very long pause, neither of them even bothering to breathe, before Angel whispered, “I’m dying.”

That got Spike upright and open-eyed again, staring at his sire. “About two centuries too late for that, innit?”

“Final death.”

“You look fairly undusty from where I sit, mate.”

Angel set his empty glass on the bedside table and rubbed at his temples. “There was this … thing. Bad guys, apocalypse, you know the story.”

“Old story.”

“Yeah. This time there was a spell that could fix everything, and Willow knew how to do the spell.”

“Been in touch with the Scoobies, have you?” Spike hoped he succeeded at keeping his voice even.

But Angel gave him a long look anyway. “Now and then. Sometimes I trade info with Giles, or I swap mystical artifacts or books for help when I need it. Not very often.” He paused as if he was waiting for something, but Spike didn’t ask, and finally Angel grimaced. “Willow said Buffy’s doing all right. She’s in—”

“Don’t.” They stared at each other for a moment until Spike relented. “ ’T’s enough to know the girl’s well, yeah?”

Angel gave him a strange look before nodding. “Yeah, okay. So Willow was helping me with this spell, but there was a price. Not to her, but to … I don’t know. Whatever’s in charge of this crap. It’s all about balance, she told me. Gotta give if you wanna get.”

“So you gave.”

“I have some money, but Willow said it had to be something important to me.” His eyes shifted to the side. “Only a few things really matter to me and … and I wasn’t willing to give them up. Except one.”

Spike wondered what those things were, but out loud he only said, “Your immortality.”

“Yeah.”

“How long?” Spike asked, and was surprised by the tremor in his own voice.

“Don’t know. Maybe I’ll just age like a human would or maybe the next thing I fight will dust me or maybe I’ll just kind of … _poof_.”

Spike sipped at the last of his whiskey and reflected on the fact that Angel’s burden wasn’t such a heavy one, when you thought about it. At least, it was no heavier than the burden carried by every human being on the planet. Humans who went about their days knowing each one brought them closer to the grave, knowing they could get hit by a bus or get eaten away by cancer or drop dead over their Big Macs from a massive stroke. 

“You here to ask me to write your eulogy?” It was just one of his usual jibes, but Angel’s face twisted as if he were in pain and Spike felt uncharacteristically guilty. 

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna throw me a funeral,” Angel replied, clearly trying to keep his voice light.

“I will. Good excuse for a proper wake, where we’ll all get rat-arsed on Jameson.”

Angel managed a weak smile. “And how will you afford this on a hotel clerk’s salary?”

“With the inheritance from my sire, of course,” Spike replied with a grin.

“I’ve never known you to need an excuse to get drunk, Spike.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t take a perfectly good one when it comes along.”

Angel actually laughed at that. It was a sound Spike hadn’t heard in ages and he only realized now how much he’d missed it. But then Angel quickly sobered. He picked up his empty glass, stared at the bottom of it as if booze might magically appear, and then set it down again. “I didn’t come here to make funeral arrangements,” he said.

Spike waited silently for the rest. Without breathing or heartbeats in the room, he could just barely make out the sound of waves crashing against rocks. Usually he found that calming, but not today. Now it reminded him of shipwrecks and storms. He recalled one full-mooned night when he’d climbed Lands End and looked down to see nearly one hundred ghosts dancing slowly over the water: transparent, glowing men recreating their final desperate movements as their ship struck the point and broke into pieces. It had been the loneliest thing he’d ever witnessed, and he’d immediately run east to the Castro and ducked into the noisiest bar he could find. Ten minutes later he was fucking a pretty boy in a back room, telling himself silently with every thrust that he wasn’t gone, wasn’t alone, wasn’t forgotten.

“Come back to LA with me.”

Spike blinked at Angel. “What?”

“LA. I still have the Hyperion so, you know, you could still stay in a hotel. Mine’s bigger.”

“Why?” Spike asked, keeping his face carefully blank.

“So that … when I’m gone … somebody’s there to protect the city.”

A strange mixture of emotions filled Spike; he couldn’t have named them all if he’d tried, but he was certain that both disappointment and pleasure were among them. He shook his head. “They can send a Slayer. I like it here.”

Angel looked about the room, his brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Weather reminds me of England.” Which was true enough, but there was more to it than that. Unlike LA, San Francisco held no memories of lost friends, of hopeless battles that he’d only barely survived, of possibilities that had slipped through his fingers. He said none of that to Angel, though.

“But you could do so much more good in LA!”

“ ’M not after redemption, remember? Besides, I help out a bit here, in my own small way. Save a few lives. Make a few people comfortable, now and then.” He shrugged. “It’s enough.”

Angel’s face filled with sorrow, but he nodded and stood. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his coat when he’d come in, and now he walked slowly to the door, limping a bit. Maybe from his fight with the fledges earlier than evening. Maybe not.

“Stay here,” Spike heard himself saying. 

Angel swung around to look at him in surprise. “I can’t. Back in LA—”

“Whatever’s in LA can wait. It’s nearly sunrise now. No reason for you to give in to mortality before you have to.”

For a long moment, Angel hesitated, and Spike was certain he was going to leave anyway. But then the set of his broad shoulders changed subtly and he gave a half-nod. “Okay.”

Somehow they ended up on the bed together, fully clothed except for shoes and coats, both leaning back against the headboard and watching cop shows on the telly. Spike warmed some blood in his little microwave and Angel murmured approvingly—it was human, nicked by an employee at the VA hospital who was happy to line his wallet with some of Spike’s paycheck. Spike and Angel didn’t speak to one another, but sometimes they chuckled softly and the tense lines of Angel’s face softened, making him appear like a young man again. 

What were those other things, Spike wondered, those things that Angel valued more than his own existence?

The last cop show ended and a morning talk show began, humans sitting on bright-colored couches and nattering too perkily about nothing of consequence. Angel tilted his head. “I think that blonde lady’s a demon.”

“Been thinking the same myself.”

Outside room 105, a key rattled in a lock as one of the maids opened the cupboard where the cleaning supplies were kept. A few moments later she walked by with her clattering cart, humming quietly to herself. Spike’s jaw cracked when he yawned.

“I’m gonna shower,” Angel announced as he stood.

“Suit yourself.”

After Angel had lumbered off to the bathroom and shut the door, Spike clicked off the telly and stripped, leaving his clothes in a little pile on the greenish carpet. Then he crawled between the sheets. He kept himself carefully on one side of the big bed, but that was nothing new. He always slept on one side even though he’d long since given up on anyone joining him. Even this morning he suspected that Angel would drape himself uncomfortably across the chairs instead.

Spike was still awake when the water stopped running. After a short pause the bathroom door opened, sending scented steam and a beam of electric light into the main room. Angel stood uncertainly in the doorway, nude, his hair wild from being towel-dried. Spike had nearly forgotten how magnificent his sire’s body was, the skin more golden than Spike’s own moonlight pale, the powerful muscles well-sculpted, the soft cock hanging heavily from a nest of dark curls. Angel was a bit on the thin side now; each rib was too prominent and his hipbones jutted. But he still looked strong. His footsteps were silent as he padded across the carpet.

Angel climbed into bed beside Spike, pulling the blankets over himself with a soft groan, repositioning the pillow slightly before letting his head fall.

His body was warm from the shower. Perhaps that’s what did it. Or maybe it was his scent: he smelled of Spike’s own soap and shampoo, of the bit of blood that still crusted his knuckles, of the whiskey he’d drunk. He smelled _familiar_. Without making the conscious decision to do so, Spike rolled over to face him and shifted across the mattress until their bodies touched. Angel went very still, but at least he didn’t move away. Spike snuffled deeply at his neck, feeling the damp hairs tickle his nose. He couldn’t help himself—his tongue flickered out, just the tip of it brushing briefly against a pulse point long gone silent.

And Angel whimpered.

What came next was like a fever dream, sensations half-felt and half-remembered. Long arms caged Spike, holding him captive as he writhed and moaned. He was opened by fingers and tongue. Slick hard skin on him, in him, the flat planes of muscles above him, old blood on his tongue—his own and his sire’s. Strong fingers tugging at his hair. Angel shouted and sobbed: “William … William … Will!”

And then they lay amongst tangled, sticky sheets, waiting for their breathing to become less ragged. Angel fell asleep first. Spike placed a soft kiss against slack lips and draped himself over Angel, as if the solid reality of Spike’s body might keep Angel from returning to LA when the sun set, might keep him from growing old or going _poof_. Might keep him.

In the darkness and with no reflection, Spike wasn’t certain whether he was smiling or grimacing. He clutched Angel tighter anddrifted to sleep thinking about important things.

 _  
~~~fin~~~   
_

  



End file.
